


leave behind a love story

by aetherae



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad End AU, Cousin Incest, Drama, F/M, Half-Sibling Incest, look if you're into jonsa i assume you know what you're getting into re: the incest tags, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 16:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20549492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Maybe if things had been different, they wouldn't be like this. They would be worse.





	leave behind a love story

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even like reading anything TOO angsty for jonsa anymore but a little while back i was feeling like SHIT and decided to work through it by writing something depressing, and frankly speaking got just lends itself well to writing melodramatic angst LMAO. but then it turned from an exploration of angst into an exploration of aus because i never intended for this fic to get so long?? it was just supposed to be quick cathartic fun???? yet here i am. with whatever this is. it's also thin as hell when it comes to any semblance of plot, but let's just remember that this is labeled au which means you don't have to think too hard on it!! (no.)
> 
> MY CONFUSION AT... MY OWN FIC......... ASIDE THOUGH, i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (title from an unofficial translation of yuna's 'tiada akhir')

In another world, Jon never joins the Night’s Watch.

He heads South to King’s Landing with his father and sisters. Father asks him to watch over his younger sisters in his place when duties call him elsewhere, but Jon thinks he’s more of their keeper than anything else.

It’s not the purpose he wanted, not by a long shot, yet there’s something to be said about family, no matter that he doesn’t share his sisters’ Tully blood. He watches with pride as Arya learns footwork more agile and fluid than anything he ever saw in the training yards of Winterfell, and even Sansa begins to soften towards him. In the South of her dreams with the future she’s longed for just within her grasp, not even a bastard half-brother can sour her mood. 

“You could become a knight here,” she tells him as he escorts her through the halls of the Red Keep, “like Aemon the Dragonknight or Florian the Fool. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

He teases, “Even though you always wanted Robb to be the knight who saved you?”

“That’s not true! I just needed someone to be the monster until Arya was born. She always made the best monster out of all of us,” Sansa says, her lips curved in fond remembrance rather than condescending malice. Jon laughs, loud and free, and Sansa only smiles wider. “Besides, I know you always bested Robb in training. You would make a better knight by far.”

Jon flushes, the sincerity of her compliments cutting right to his boyhood heart where he once dreamed of being like the very knights she speaks of. His mumbled thanks feel so clumsy in comparison.

“It would be nice, you know. If you were a knight, you could stay here and… And then even once I marry, I would always have family here with me,” she murmurs, and when he looks at her, her gaze is cast to the side, cheeks tinged just the slightest pink.

For all her dreams of the South, he wonders if she misses home, now that she’s finally here. If the idea of being in King’s Landing without any of the people she loves scares her just a bit. If that embarrasses her when she’s already a lady grown, having spent so much time already wishing to be in the South that to say otherwise is no longer within her rights. He can imagine it easily enough. After all, it embarrasses him plenty, that he complained so much of journeying South with them initially, only to find himself more than content here.

He places his free hand on the one she has tucked into his arm and squeezes gently.

“It would be nice.” Jon smiles, soft and warm. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think on it and speak with Father.”

Frankly, it’s hard to imagine spending his life in King’s Landing. The longer he spends in the Southron heat, the more he hates it, and he’d be more than happy to never see a Lannister again. Knighthood—or perhaps even being a knight of the Kingsguard, as Sansa seems to want—was never the purpose he saw for himself. No, Jon doesn’t think the South could ever be the place where he belongs.

But then Sansa smiles so brightly and widely, the way he knows she only smiles for people she truly loves, and he sees no reason why he can’t at least try.

He tries, truly. Even when Robert Baratheon dies; even when his father tells him that the king’s death was no accident, but murder; even when it turns out that Cersei sired no heirs to the throne, only bastards. Even then, Jon tries to find a place for himself here. Whether it’s supporting his honorable father or protecting his sisters, he tries.

In the end, he succeeds. Jon earns the same place as Ned Stark: his decapitated head impaled on a spike.

When Joffrey takes Sansa out to look at the dead faces of her family, her red-rimmed eyes shed no tears as she gazes at her father’s face. She can barely hear what the prince says when she looks at Jon, but she knows he isn’t watching her and allows herself a moment to blink back the urge to cry.

_I should have loved you sooner_, she thinks. _If I had, I’d have more than just a few months’ worth of walking with you, laughing with you, talking with you. But if I never loved you at all, maybe you’d still be alive. Maybe I wouldn’t have told you to become a knight, maybe you would have left, maybe you’d be back home with Robb already, hearing the news and ready to mount a rescue, if only for Arya._

_You wouldn’t be dead, and that would be enough._

But corpses hear neither words nor thoughts, and Jon never knows how he fulfills Sansa’s wish.

She always has her family here, even when he’s nothing more than bones.

* * *

In another world, Sansa leaves with Brienne the moment she arrives.

It should give her pause, she knows. Winterfell lies not even a few days’ ride before her, but rather than return home at long last through a detestable if easy political marriage, Sansa Stark runs off into the night on horseback with Brienne of Tarth and her squire Podrick Payne without a single glance back.

Perhaps part of her is simply tired of playing the game, the ruse, of bowing her head to people she would prefer never to see again. Maybe she can no longer stomach following Littlefinger’s lead, of having to endure chaste, cloying kisses from dry lips—lips that spoke of loving her own mother before he turned his eyes on her, of loving her aunt before he pushed her through the Moon Door.

Or maybe the wolf in her would rather die than be cloaked by the traitors that murdered Robb, would sooner tear their throats out with her own teeth than be made to walk through Winterfell’s walls like an outsider, a stranger welcomed by Bolton arms.

No, the choice is quite simple, when she thinks about it.

“We’ll head for the Wall,” Brienne tells her. They’ve made camp for the night in dense woods, though no fire burns. Sansa makes no complaint. Cold is better than leading her pursuers to them. “Your brother is Lord Commander there.”

“Jon is? Really?”

Her lips curve in a smile to think of it. She tries to imagine what he might look like, the half-brother she hasn’t seen in what feels like a hundred years, now a man grown and Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Not even their Uncle Benjen made Lord Commander. With a pang of guilt, she realizes she never thought Jon would even make ranger. No, she hardly ever thought of him at all once she left for King’s Landing. The most she thought of him was when she longed to see her family again in general, all of them.

But it would be so sweet to see any of her family again, to see _home_ once more. She wonders how he might have changed, the exploits he’s surely had at the Wall and beyond. As children, she remembers Jon always loved hearing tales of heroes and adventures the most, and now he must have his own. Would he make the time to tell her of them, to the sibling who loved him least? Brienne and Pod believe she’ll be safest there with her family, but she worries. She isn’t Robb, or Arya, or even Bran or Rickon. The Night’s Watch takes no sides, and Jon is Lord Commander. Would he even be happy to see her?

It doesn’t matter, she decides. Whether he welcomes her or treats her with the coldness she gave to him in their youth, whether he helps her take back Winterfell or only spares a day for her, she’ll love him all the same. No, she’ll love him better. Not as a half-brother, but as her brother, her family—with her whole heart, the way she should have from the beginning.

Sansa falls asleep that night with a giddiness she hasn’t felt since she was a girl. Castle Black lies even further away than Winterfell would have, but the promise of seeing Jon once more makes that distance feel like nothing. To be safe, to see her family, to see _Jon_—they turn over and over in her mind until they’re practically the same thing. She closes her eyes with a prayer on her lips, the first one in years, that she’ll see Jon soon enough.

They inch their way slowly towards Castle Black, sticking to rarely-trodden paths and the cover of night as much as they can. Podrick sheds his own thin cloak for Sansa’s use, but the Southron-woven fabric does little against the chill of the North, even on top of her own. She welcomes the cold though, lets it settle into her bones as if it welcomes her home.

The howls of Ramsay Bolton’s hounds provoke a different sort of chill.

Littlefinger informed her of them, along with what he knew of Roose Bolton’s bastard—that he did his father’s bidding, as all good sons do, but was not heir to his house despite his legitimization. She remembers the wild look in his eyes from their single meeting though, how he spoke softly, almost weakly, with perfectly polite manners, yet that singular look alone made her want to crawl out of her own skin. Brienne rushes her onto her horse, urging Pod to go with her, and Sansa knows that Roose Bolton has no intention of letting his son go unwed.

No one told her that Ramsay was utterly mad though, and she wonders if his own father even realizes. She chances one look back as her horse takes off, flinches when she sees an arrow land not even two steps away from where she stood. What else could he be, to be chasing after the heir to Winterfell like this?

Brienne falls behind somewhere, shouting for her and Pod to ride on for as long as she can hear her. She wants to look back, to turn around and find her newly sworn knight riding up behind them as she should, but Sansa hears the clash of blades, the battle cries of more than just Brienne. A piercing wail tears through the air as the sound of hounds’ howls and horses’ hooves approach closer and closer, and she knows there’s no time to look back for someone who can longer come. Her honorable lady knight gives her life for her, just as she swore, and Sansa tastes bile in her mouth despite their hurried escape. For all the reminders that life is not a song, she thinks this is the cruelest of them all.

They ride and ride and ride, but no matter how they urge their horses on, an arrow lands in the ground too close for comfort, or a dog appears to nip at the heels of her horse. Eventually even Pod must linger behind, his grimace not even a cold comfort when he tells her to charge forward without him. There’s no time for a true goodbye, no matter how true she knows it to be, and she last sees him slashing away at the hounds. Some foolish, childish part of her thinks if she rides away fast enough, she never has to hear the end. She can imagine that Podrick Payne doesn’t die to Bolton men and vicious hounds.

She can imagine that she isn’t alone.

But just like Brienne, his dying shout shatters the air no matter how loud her frantic breathing. Death always seems so loud.

It comes as a surprise then, when the arrow finds its mark. Even with the burning pain that flares through her back, even as she falls off her horse and watches it run off in a frenzy without her, the dull thunk of the arrowhead piercing her skin is what surprises her the most.

It’s such a quiet way to die. She never even hears the other two arrows that find their way home in her. She doesn’t even feel them.

All she can feel is the cold. Her body refuses to listen to her, fingers merely twitching when she tries to drag herself forward, but she keeps her gaze ever northward. To home. To Jon. Distantly, she thinks she wants to laugh. She wants to cry. For all she thought she grew out of being a stupid, silly girl, perhaps she never truly did. She allowed herself to believe she could go home again, to feel the warm embrace of someone she loved once more, despite all the times she swore to herself she never would—and this is her punishment. Instead of his arms around her, there’s only the freshly fallen snow.

But it reminds her of Jon. She closes her eyes for the last time, thinking that makes it home enough.

When Jon opens his eyes for the first time in his new life, he opens them not to the snow he died surrounded in but to a creaking, shabby room in Castle Black. The exact room doesn’t come to mind, but he knows the look of this keep better than even Winterfell. It makes him want to vomit.

He needs to get out of here.

To where though, he isn’t sure. If they lived, his brothers could be somewhere north of here. If they lived, his sisters could be somewhere south. He could look for them, he thinks. Any of them. As he saddles his horse and looks towards the Wall, thinks of all that lies beyond and what comes marching closer every single day, he packs with the lightest clothing he can find.

Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard and Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, died. Whoever came back is no longer beholden to the laws of men, the Night’s Watch, not even those of the gods’. What retribution does some undead abomination have to fear? What family would even want to see such a thing?

It would be so sweet to see them though. Rickon, Bran, Arya, even Sansa. No matter how distant they were as children, he still remembers her bright smiles, how lovely she sang. For all that she took after her mother, her cool demeanor towards him and insistence on propriety, he thinks that he never made all that much effort for her either. As a boy, he had no patience for her songs or stories, no matter how sweetly she sang. Now, he has all the time in the world. He imagines meeting her again after so many years, of learning to love her better, of managing to make her smile all on his own for once.

But he pushes the thought away, buries it where every dream of seeing his loved ones once more lies. Those were Jon Snow’s hopes and dreams, and they died with him.

As did Sansa, that night in the snow. Even reborn, Jon still knows nothing.

Instead, he heads for somewhere warm. Not once does he look back.

* * *

In another world, Jon and Sansa flee to Essos.

They fashion themselves as husband and wife, come up with new names and new looks, entirely new identities. Sansa takes care in dying her auburn hair a drab chestnut brown, and Jon lets his beard grow and grow till half of his face is nearly unrecognizable. The locals have few questions for refugee Westerosi in plain looks and plainer pockets, especially when half the capital seemed to have the same idea. For all the wonders and unfamiliarity of the Free City, they hear the Westerosi accent more often than either ever would’ve imagined.

It leaves one thing that can remain true, if nothing else. Sansa tells Jon over and over: the best lies come from the truth.

Alayne Rivers finds quick work as a seamstress, her talent with needle and thread impressing even the most arrogant of patrons. Fine dresses and garments are in endless demand here, from lovers seeking an enticing gift or aristocrats wishing to gain favor with a politician. Her fellow seamstresses all ask how she learned to embroider so, and her answer remains the same every time. A vulgar shrug, her eyes focused on her work, voice exhausted and exasperated when she tells of the impossible standards she had to meet for the nobility she served. She makes no mention of how the noble who set those impossible standards on her is herself, how it’s easier to think of the little girl showing off her work to her mother and father as another person entirely.

Jon Rivers takes up easy money as a sellsword, his sword arm strong as ever even in the unbearable humidity. Essos has endless places and peoples that want protection—pleasure houses, gambling rows, merchants and entertainers who fancy themselves affluent enough to be royalty. He makes no preference when it comes to what he guards, so long as the money’s there. His employers ask how on earth a simple bastard from Westeros came to swing a sword so well, but his answer always comes with a shrug, less elaborate than they want. The continent had its fair share of bandits and outlaws, and like every other man, Jon took up a weapon to defend his home till it was no longer worth defending. There’s no reason to explain how those bandits were Free Folk just as desperate to survive as him, how his home stopped being worth it when his sworn brothers murdered him.

Their stories are boring yet commonplace—real enough for others to believe in, vague enough to fill in the holes on their own. With Westeros torn apart by kings and queens, it’s all too easy to find tales of those escaping the continent. The Rivers are just another unhappy couple seeking safety amidst so much danger. Everyone can believe it.

When they’re not careful, they can almost believe it, too.

Sometimes it’s so easy to love Jon as his wife, Sansa forgets it was ever any other way. She imagines the two of them falling asleep in each others’ arms rather than with their backs facing each other, clumsy and awkward in their shared bed. She imagines welcoming him home with her smile pressed to his lips rather than the simple grin she offers him. She imagines walking through the streets with their fingers laced together like the lovers they pass by, showering each other with laughter and kisses just like them, rather than the stiff way she leaves her hand tucked into his arm as he escorts her through the streets.

Jon acts as Sansa’s husband so often, he must remind himself that it’s only for show. When he walks her to and from her work, warding off any wandering eyes with a glare only for her to smile up at him in thanks, it feels real. When she sends him off to his own work with a meal she self-admittedly clumsily put together herself, it feels real. When he dares to take her hand into his, no gloves or leathers between them, and she links their fingers together, it feels real. Frighteningly real. Real enough that he wants it to be. He thinks she does, too.

It would be easy to be happy. Breathtakingly, heartbreakingly easy. Alayne and Jon Rivers deserve to be happy.

Sansa Stark and Jon Snow are a different story.

The shame alone could suffocate them. In the privacy of their tiny, weathered hobble they call a home, Jon loses count of the times he finds Sansa gazing at him with a look so unguarded, so vulnerable, so achingly adoring—before her eyes meet his and she cuts her gaze away, shoulders hunched and cheeks flushed, and he knows. He knows because he does the same all too often, all too easily. She hates herself just as much as he hates himself for what he feels. For all that he loves her, falls more in love with her every day, his own self-loathing only grows exponentially more. As a child, he remembers hearing stories of knights and ladies, the romantic stories Sansa begged to hear. By the happy end, she always clasped her hands in glee, and privately, he remembers smiling to know the knights and ladies loved one another, too.

None of them sang of joy to be found when a bastard half-brother loved his sister. Perhaps for brother and sister, but they are not Targaryens, and those stories aren’t for them. 

If that was all it was though, Sansa thinks she could bring herself to forget. In this foreign land with no one to know them, their names, their history—it would be all too easy to believe the lie themselves. She could bear the suffocation of shame. Jon could too, she’s sure. If she fought for it, he would.

But one day he comes home bearing news of Westeros, of the walking dead that now plague the North and march ever southwards, and they learn how guilt outweighs shame by far, far more.

“They say the North’s been all but overrun,” he says, head in his hands from his seat at the table. “That the only ones who remain are the dead.”

Sansa swallows thickly. He told her once in passing, of the threat he knew that came for all of Westeros. Wraiths and undead monsters, creatures made of ice and stone. It sounded like one of the more frightening tales that Bran would ask for as children, and she thought of it as such. She had no desire to ask for details, and he had no desire to speak more on it. Here in Essos, it all seemed so far away, and he dismissed the rest of it easily, saying it was nothing for them to worry about.

“Do you think… Do you think they’re alright?”

She doesn’t specify who. He doesn’t ask.

Brienne never agreed with their escape to Essos, arguing with the oath she swore to Sansa’s lady mother, of returning her home to Winterfell. Davos remained tight-lipped on his opinion, only saying that he had no right to stop them, but Jon knew he didn’t agree either. Sansa thinks of Theon and how he meant to return to his sister and the Ironborn, wonders if he escaped the North in time. She can only hope he had, that he remains in a ship on the sea even now, as far from Westeros as possible. Jon remembers Sam, how his dearest friend always meant to return to Castle Black with any information he could find on the White Walkers. He hopes that Sam realized what a fool’s errand it was, that he had the good sense to take Gilly and Little Sam as far south as he could.

They think of Arya and Bran and Rickon, still lost to the world for all they know. No matter that their siblings are their longest lasting what-ifs, their survival only seems all the more bleak.

Jon answers honestly. For all they must lie to the world, they swore honesty for each other. “I don’t know. I hope they are, but…”

He trails off, his sentence left hanging. Sansa needs no end to it though. For as much of a tale as the White Walkers sound, this isn’t a tale. This isn’t a story. Even without ever having seen them for herself, there’s only one way this can end.

For Jon and Alayne Rivers, it should cause nothing more than distant worry. Gratitude, maybe, that they’re in Essos rather than Westeros. It should have nothing to do with them. Whatever happens to their former home, it’s no longer any concern of theirs.

It could have been though. Should have been. They should have defended the North, Winterfell, the precious few who cared enough to trust them, the family that could still return home one day—they should have protected them till their very last breaths. Jon looks up at Sansa, sees the way she balls her fist in her skirts, and knows she thinks the same.

She swallows, looking up into his eyes. He does the same.

“Could we be happy here?”

Here, in this tiny room, there’s no room for anything but the truth.

“—Should we?”

The honorable Ned Stark’s children, perhaps the last Starks period, the only people who could have hoped to take back the North—who turned tail and ran from their responsibilities the moment they could.

Suddenly, safety is enough. More than enough. It would be foolish to want any more. Selfish, greedy even. They can be content with safety. They don’t need more than safety. Sansa Stark and Jon Snow don’t deserve it.

Why should they be happy when they left everyone and everything they loved behind for dead?

* * *

In another world, Sansa never watches Jon leave for Dragonstone.

She goes herself.

Treating with the Dragon Queen doesn’t go well, just as she expected. Daenerys Targaryen wanted a monarch for a monarch, but Sansa supposes a queen who leaves her lands and peoples undefended for new ones couldn’t understand a king who would give everything and anything to protect the ones he already has. She speaks of freeing the people from the tyranny of people like Cersei and those before her, of taking back the home that was stolen away from her, of the lengths she has taken to return. Her eyes blaze with the truth of her cause, and even without her silver-blonde hair or the three dragons flying above them, Sansa could believe her heritage from that fire alone.

In her heart, she sympathizes. The last Targaryen has a good heart, better than most, and their world does not look kindly upon girls with hearts who long for home.

It’s why she remains guarded. Those wishes may come from a good heart, but the means to achieve it ask for a different sort of woman, and she knows that from experience. Sansa looks at her and sees a queen who left a sellsword to govern Meereen, who abandoned her responsibilities so that she could wage war for a land that never even asked for her. She sees a woman with a Dothraki horde, an army of Unsullied, and three dragons that blast fire throughout the sky.

Daenerys Targaryen has the power to change the world. She also has the power to conquer it.

“She simply wants to make the world a better place for us all, the North included,” Tyrion argues later. It’s a strange feeling, speaking with the least horrible of her ex-husbands once more. Part of her feels glad to see him alive and well, but she can also admit that she never wanted to see any part of her life in King’s Landing once more—the people, the South, any of it.

“And if the North wished to better itself on its own? If the lords and ladies knew no king or queen but the King in the North?”

Tyrion purses his lips but only replies softly, “If the coming war you speak of truly is so dire, you know that isn’t possible.”

Sansa wouldn’t be here if he didn’t speak the truth, no matter how much she doesn’t want to acknowledge it. If not the dragons themselves, the North needs the dragonglass here at the very least. Jon insisted, and regardless of her difficulty in imagining the enemy he speaks of, she trusts him. No matter her lack of understanding regarding the White Walkers, watching Daenerys’ dragons soar and breathe fire through the sky certainly opens her eyes to the idea of what’s possible and impossible.

Life as gilded prisoner on Dragonstone proves to be frustrating if uneventful. Daenerys refuses to turn her attention away from the Iron Throne while Sansa refuses to give away what isn’t hers to give in the first place, and there isn’t much else to be done for it. Some days fear claws at the back of her throat, the girl in her heart screaming and crying that she allowed herself to be made prisoner once more when she could’ve remained safe and sound in Winterfell. Sansa swallows it back every time, reminding herself that she made the choice on her own terms, that neither could she afford to stay a little girl who longed for home.

Her awe at the dragons quickly fades into unnerving reminders of the power Daenerys Targaryen holds over her and all of Westeros, and though the South has cooled some in the years since she left, the cloying heat and humidity of Dragonstone leaves much to be desired. With little else to do, Sansa writes to Jon.

He writes her back often, the letters lengthy and verbose, much to her surprise. It makes her smile to think of it; for all his natural charisma, he always sagged with relief when the lords would leave the hall and free him from having to speak. In his letters, he seems to write of every thought on his mind. He worries about their enemies past the Wall, of his communication with the Night’s Watch to better prepare, no matter his personal feelings regarding them. The lords are a never-ending headache without her there to counsel him, and he finds his patience running thin with Lord Baelish most of all. Jon mentions how Ghost tried to bite off the man’s hand during one particularly tiresome meeting, and Sansa laughs so brightly that even Brienne later asks her what was so funny.

When he writes her of not just Bran’s return but Arya’s as well, she thinks she could weep from the bittersweet joy of it. Reunited at last, all her remaining family resides in Winterfell as they should be, yet she remains trapped in the South once more.

_Arya says to tell you to hurry back home already_, he writes in his latest letter. _She won’t say it, but I know she wants to see you again desperately. She misses you, as do I. I never thought I could miss our arguments, but I’ve come to understand I do a fantastic job of making a fool of myself in front of the lords all on my own. Davos is quick to remind me of it after every meeting, and so does Arya when she attends. It all feels quite unfair. At least you tell me I do a decent enough job ruling, even if only after undermining me. Nevertheless, I miss you, Sansa._

She traces the scrawl of his hand over and over once she finishes reading, eyes drifting down to where he signed the letter.

_Yours, Jon_.

Every time, he signs it as such, and every time, her heart flutters. There lies a secret shame she cannot bear to name, but here in this Southron prison with so few comforts, she privately allows herself the indulgence of her heart. She allows herself to see in his words the longing and yearning she knows line her own letters, to imagine what it would be like if he wrote true. _Yours_. That he might be truly hers, just as she knows she is already his.

And then she looks down at her hands in disgust, her shame so great she thinks she could suffocate. Is it possible she went so long without her family, her siblings, she forgot entirely how to be a sister? It’s the only way to explain her repulsive feelings. But then, she never truly was a sister to Jon, no matter that he forgave her for it. Nothing can explain away her twisted heart, and she burns more than one attempted reply, knowing her words expose too much.

No matter how much she longs to return home, she welcomes the distance just as much as she hates it. It may have done nothing to kill her repulsive feelings, but here at least, she can control herself. Here, isolated and parted, there’s nothing for her to give away.

Disaster inevitably strikes, and Daenerys prepares to leave with her forces for the Reach. Sansa watches from the beach as the soldiers row out to their ships when to her surprise, the Dragon Queen approaches, grimacing and brow pinched. She spots Tyrion watching them from not too far away, and she wonders if this is his idea.

“Lady Sansa,” she begins stiffly, hands clasped together in front of her. It’s the most demure Sansa’s ever seen her, and a look she wears uncomfortably. “I understand that you knew Cersei Lannister well. Aside from drawing me into battle by attacking my allies, what do you think she plans to do by targeting the Reach?”

Sansa raises her brow delicately. “Tyrion knows her as well as I do, if not more. Lord Varys spent years with her as well. Are their opinions not enough?”

“A good ruler hears the counsel of those around them. You’ve a different perspective than two men who spent years serving her, I’m sure, and I would like to hear it.”

She tries, if nothing else. Sansa thinks it much too late in the game for her to merely be trying, but while she’s under no obligation to give advice to the woman who essentially keeps her imprisoned, she has no wish to see Cersei’s continued rule. Besides, Daenerys agreed to ship dragonglass to the North without issue, not even in trade of something else. Even if the ore was simply of no use to her, it seems fair enough to offer the advice she asks for.

“The Reach supplies grain to nearly all of Westeros. Cersei likely plans to take it, and she will use it to fortify herself and her armies only. King’s Landing would starve, as would the rest of the kingdoms.” Sansa pauses. Daenerys has little mind for politics, but Sansa has seen that she can be swayed with honeyed words and patience, the same as anyone else. Perhaps with the right opportunity, she’ll come to the kingdoms with more a mind for ruling than conquering. “This is a chance to prove yourself to the people of Westeros, your grace. Deliver them the food they need this winter, and show yourself to be different from Cersei.”

Daenerys says nothing, but she dips her head just slightly before turning back to her Hand. Sansa can only hope the queen takes her words into consideration, that she’ll prove her worries wrong and show herself different from her ancestors like she spoke of.

She keeps a correspondence with Tyrion during their absence, and she wonders if it’s his affection for her or Daenerys’ continued attempts at friendliness that allow him to write so openly. When she receives his letter informing her that they finally mean to sail home, it’s the only explanation she can think of for his words—House Tyrell fallen for good, the Lannister army pushed back, how they’ve dealt a crippling blow to Cersei for sure. How they’ll return with fewer supplies than they left with and no prisoners.

Something drops in the pit of Sansa’s stomach, and she knows.

_Daenerys musn’t be allowed to take the North_, she writes in a hasty hand. _Our people would not last. When Torrhen Stark chose to bend the knee, it wasn’t a choice at all. To serve or perish is not a choice. I speak from the bottom of my heart when I say this to you, Jon: I would sooner die than see her rule our home._

Sansa presses her lips to the parchment, eyes screwed shut and brow furrowed. Jon cannot bend the knee if they mean to keep the North safe from Daenerys’ tyranny, and she knows now what the words _fire and blood_ mean to the last Targaryen. Even if it means refusing their greatest potential ally, she cannot bring the Dragon Queen northwards. To do so would surely mean Jon’s death. There is no godswood here in Dragonstone, no heart tree to swear oaths under, but she promises it all the same. She’ll keep Jon safe, no matter the cost.

In the end, she keeps her promise.

No one sees the giant arrow bolt through the air to pierce Viserion through his jugular, but they all hear his dying screech. They all see him plummet through the sky and into the sea, taking down part of Daenerys’ returning fleet with him. Sansa watches in horror as the water swallows the dragon corpse, and just as she knows Daenerys can never be allowed to take the North, she knows she will never see her home again.

Chaos erupts, and some distant part of Sansa remembers the attack on Blackwater Bay, the sheer frenetic pandemonium of it all. Rhaegal’s shriek could shatter the air itself as he takes off for the horizon, and Daenerys breaks out into a run to keep her last child from doing the same. Tyrion and Jorah Mormont chase after her, leaving Grey Worm and Missandei alone to command the Unsullied and Dothraki left ashore. She watches from the cliffside as Euron Greyjoy’s fleet bombards what remains of Daenerys’.

Brienne rushes her back to the keep, but her knight leaves soon after to join the fight. Even from her room, she can hear the clashes and clangs of drawn swords, the roars and howls of soldiers killing and dying. She hears it draw ever closer. It could be minutes or hours, and she learns that battles feel the same no matter where she is—whether trapped in a keep or waiting for word from a tent, it is the same. Helpless, endless, suffocating.

When she hears the gates break down and the victory cries of Cersei’s forces spill forth, Sansa gains another lesson: little feels different in a battle lost.

An open window facing the sea lies at the end of the hall. She makes too valuable a political hostage to simply kill here. No, Cersei would want much worse for her. Sansa runs through the hall thinking that for once, the choice is quite simple.

Farther south from her home than ever before, Sansa drowns under the choppy seas as the Iron Fleet lays siege to Dragonstone.

From Cersei’s own hand, Jon learns of Daenerys Targaryen’s retreat and the death of his sister. He declares war on the South to the rallying, vengeful cries of every soul in Winterfell.

_Stay safe_, Sansa wrote in her last letter, so hastily the ink smudged and blurred. Her last words to him, and Jon must settle for cold and crinkled parchment. _I’ll do what I can to keep you safe from here, I promise._

He presses a kiss against it, eyes screwed shut as he fights back a sob, wishing he wrote back sooner. No promise to him is worth her safety, her happiness, her life—but it’s already too late to tell her.

* * *

In another world, there is no Jon Snow.

Aemon Targaryen, second prince of the Seven Kingdoms and affectionately nicknamed ‘Jon’ by his Stark cousins as a boy fostered at Winterfell, stands waiting in King’s Landing for his uncle and cousins to arrive.

After returning home, he assumed it would be much longer before he saw any of his mother’s family again, perhaps only when he went to visit Winterfell once more. King Rhaegar’s invitation to them came as a surprise, albeit a very welcomed one. No matter that he was born to the warm weather and politics of the South, Jon longed for the North once more the moment he left. Even with the nostalgia of childhood to color it, life seemed simpler there. He’s little patience for the intrigue of court life, and even less interest in finery. All that held interest for him in the South remained in the North when he unwillingly returned home—until today.

Sansa Stark curtsies like the perfect lady before his half-siblings and father, but when she looks up at him, her smile is the one he remembers best from her: warm, gentle, yet challenging all the same.

“I’ve come to hold you to your word, my prince.”

Jon laughs, loud and free, heartier than he’s sure any of his family would have heard in ages. To the Starks, it must be more familiar than not. He offers his arm to her, treasuring the way she tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow so easily, so perfectly, as if that’s where it’s meant to be.

“I always did promise you, didn’t I?”

Growing up, all his Stark cousins would ask him for stories of the South. For Robb, that meant hearing about what growing up as a prince would like, mostly so he could joke that Jon had it so much easier in the sunny South compared to the heir of Winterfell. Bran asked for anything of the knights and tourneys he’d seen, if his father the king had participated in the jousting matches and what that looked like. Arya always listened in on those stories as well, wanting to know if he remembered any of the moves the knights had shown him, how they held their swords, or what other fighting would go on during tourneys. Rickon wanted to listen to them all, eager to join his older siblings in their fun—before inevitably running off for something else that caught his interest better.

But Sansa wanted to know everything. What the king was like, what the crown prince and princess were like, what his lady mother or Queen Elia were like when they lived. She asked of what ladies wore in the South, if gallant and noble knights attended to them like they did in the stories Old Nan told them. He lost his voice more than once describing how King’s Landing looked, if there were really dragon bones running underneath the castle, if the sea truly sparkled at sunset like the bards and minstrels sang of on the rare occasions they held feasts in Winterfell. She wished to know everything there was to know of the South, and as much as he tried, there was only so much Jon could tell her.

“It’d be better if I could show you instead,” he remembers telling her as a boy, the two of them hiding with lemon cakes Sansa had snuck away herself in a rare bout of mischief. They’d just finished another game of knights and ladies, although Robb complained of Jon always being made the knight just because he was a prince, and Arya decided to be a lady who turned into a monster. Sansa decided Jon deserved a reward for playing by her rules, and even then, he knew he’d do more or less anything to make her smile. “Just come visit me after I return home. Then you can see as much of the South as you want.”

Even with her favorite treat in her hands, Sansa’s eyes practically glowed as she beamed. “Truly? You promise, Jon? You have to promise you’ll show me everything!”

“On my honor,” he swore, making Sansa giggle from what he thought was a very chivalrous and knightly kiss pressed to her hand, save for the crumbs lining his mouth. “I swear to show you everything in King’s Landing you wish to see.”

Jon loved her then already, and every time after she bid him to renew his promise to her. Now, as he shows her fill of the balmy sunlit capital, he knows he only loves her more.

Despite his family here, there’s little of the South he loves. From the court politics to unending sun, the heavy humidity in the air making the rank smell of Flea Bottom even worse—no, if it was up to him, he’d much rather return North. With Sansa here though, beside him and radiant enough to make every common view of King’s Landing somehow new and wondrous, he thinks he could learn to love the South easily.

“Oh, Jon,” she says on a breathless laugh, hair a windswept tangle as they overlook the sea. He nearly reaches out to tuck a strand behind her ear, but she beats him to it before he can. “It’s even lovelier than I imagined. Your words did it no justice at all.”

He rolls his eyes, trying to stop his growing smile and failing. Sansa only smiles wider at him, and he beams. “I never claimed to be a poet! Especially as a child. Besides, you’ve seen the sea before. Surely White Harbor provided its own beauty to see.”

“White Harbor wasn’t the same at all! The weather was so dreary there for one, and even if it wasn’t, there was no time at all to enjoy the sights what with the preparations we had to make. Besides, you…” she trails off suddenly. Her cheeks flush the prettiest pink, and she averts her eyes back to the water.

For a moment, he thinks he simply can’t hear her. His heart pounds so hard in his chest, it’s hard to hear anything else.

“Sansa? What about me?”

“… You weren’t there,” she mumbles, darting one quick look at him before her cheeks flush even pinker. “So of course it wasn’t as lovely at this.”

Gods, but he’s in love with her. He’d be a fool to pretend otherwise.

Her Septa arrives soon after, whisking her away to prepare for the feast his father has planned for tonight, but his promise to save a dance for her no matter how clumsy his feet manages to bring a smile back to her lips as they part. The whole Keep is underway now with preparations for the feast, and he holds in a sigh knowing he likely won’t have a chance to speak to his father and Uncle Ned privately until tomorrow at the earliest. At the very least, it gives him time to plan.

Jon considered the idea only idly at first once he left Winterfell, the wistful dreams of an infatuated boy. The longer he spent at home in King’s Landing though, the more he returned to that dream, let it settle and solidify into the dearest wish of his heart. The long months without Sansa by his side only made him surer. Now, with these sweet weeks in her presence once more, he knows without doubt.

He wants to marry her. There could be no greater happiness than to wake up beside her every day, to be able to call her wife as often as he pleased.

As a child, he asked for little from his father, save for lessons from knights or clearer views at tourneys, but those were the same meager wants that Aegon asked after as well. He made no complaint when Rhaegar bid him to the North, no matter how much it felt like being sent away as the least favored son, and he returned home without a fight despite wishing to stay. Even in Winterfell, the only trouble he recalls ever causing for Uncle Ned was the occasional mischief he got up to with Robb and Theon, sometimes Arya too if they helped her avoid her lessons for too long. He remembers telling him how he wished to never leave Winterfell, and his uncle replied that he felt much the same. They’ve little reason to refuse a formal courting then betrothal to Sansa, but he prepares his argument just in case.

With all the time he spent in the North, it only makes sense for him to take a Northern bride. He could honor his mother’s family, even strengthen the ties between the North and South. Some tensions still lingered due to his parents, but his marriage to Sansa could help ease that. Above all, he would be a good husband to Sansa, treating her with all the love and respect she deserved. More than just a political marriage, theirs would be a union of love. If they allowed him the chance to prove it, he could make her happy. She already does so for him.

It’s a sound argument. With a decisive nod, he leaves for the feast, as eager for tomorrow to come as he is to fulfill his promise to Sansa.

That tomorrow never comes though. Instead, he watches in horrified shock as his father makes that same argument during the feast—for Aegon.

“May I present to you my son, the crown prince Aegon of House Targaryen,” Rhaegar bellows in the feast hall, Aegon and Sansa on either side before him. Jon can barely even hear his words, no matter how gut-wrenching. No, all he can focus on is Sansa, how despite her finery she looks as sick as he feels himself, pale as a ghost. It makes the pit of his stomach drop. “And his betrothed, Lady Sansa of House Stark!”

The hall erupts in cheers and applause, a deafening roar for the Seven Kingdoms’ crown prince and bride-to-be, for the strengthening ties of the North and South. Even so, Jon hears nothing over his heart pounding in his ears.

As the feast commences properly, he takes his seat gladly. The food tastes like ashes in his mouth, and he can’t even pretend to follow the conversations of those around him. Thankfully, few try to speak with him specifically, a sullen reputation preceding him whether he likes it or not, but it gives him plenty of opportunity to look to Sansa instead. He doesn’t hide or disguise his gaze, and he sees his father glance his way more than once. Rhaenys would chastise him for acting so unbecoming of a prince, and Aegon would tease him for the same if either of them knew, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Sansa remains seated on the other side of the table at her place of honor, hands folded demurely in her lap as she thanks the many people who visit to congratulate her on her betrothal. He thinks she looks more trapped than anything, her smile tight and failing to reach her eyes no matter how pretty. Every time he tries to catch her gaze, she can only spare a few seconds—to smile back at him, warm and true, and it quickens his heart as much as it pains it—before she must return her attention elsewhere.

Despite how long he waits, there’s no opportunity to even approach her, let alone ask for her hand in a dance. With no choice but to break his promise, he leaves.

His father won’t hear any of his arguments the next day. Rhaegar says that he may take a Northern bride if it pleases him, no matter how he wished for him to make a marriage alliance elsewhere, but the firstborn daughter of Ned Stark deserves no less than the firstborn son of the crown. All Jon hears is how he and Sansa must be the ones to pay for his father’s crime of stealing away his mother, of how he’ll never be good enough just for being born later.

He finds himself with Sansa soon after, walking through the gardens. What should be the familiar, comforting weight of her hand in his arm somehow turns cold instead, and not even her warmth beside him can bring a smile to his face.

“Congratulations, cousin,” he struggles to say. In his heart, he means none of it, but he already knows she’ll make a wonderful queen. If nothing else, he can celebrate her happiness. “You get to have what you always wanted now.”

She whips around, brow drawn and eyes wet with unshed tears. “Don’t be so stupid, Jon! You know that couldn’t possibly be true!”

He blinks, slow and sluggish. No matter how much a part of him delights in her words, he can only voice his confusion.

“But you’ve always dreamed of coming South, haven’t you? Of being a princess or queen just like in the songs.” Jon swallows, his next words almost too heavy to bear. The thought alone might as well be lead, or stone, or bones. He could nearly choke on it. “My brother… Aegon can give those things to you. He would be good to you.”

Or else they’ll have another Dance of Dragons on their hands, but he keeps that thought to himself.

Her laugh comes quietly, low and resigned. It sounds too much like a sob.

“When I dreamed of going South, of marrying a gallant knight or noble prince and being the perfect lady just like in the songs… It was you, Jon,” she chokes out. Her eyes wrench shut as she drags in a staggering breath, and he reaches out, cradles her face in his hands just to steady her. As he thumbs away her tears, she opens her eyes, lips trembling as she manages a smile. “It was always you. It’s not my dream come true if you’re not here with me.”

A sob tears through the air once more, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s him. Her tears fall even harder in tandem as she clutches his hands with her own in a grip that could bruise for how tight it is, and he knows he looks no better. Still, just the same as her, he tries to smile back. Sansa deserves no less from him.

“I want you to know that I love you. More than anything. Even if it can never be, I want you to know.”

Her smile would be radiant if not for the tears that cloud her eyes.

He wraps his arms around her, nearly crushing her against him. It almost frightens him, how tightly he holds her, if not for the fact that she clings to him just the same. She buries her face in his chest, as if she means to make a home in him, as if it would be enough to keep them together. His fingers will leave bruises on her skin, her bones will ache from how fiercely she grips him, but still she keeps him in her arms for as long as she can.

Life is not a song, but Jon nearly makes it so. A prince and his lady love, a man who loves her whom she loves in return. Sansa presses her lips to his, thinking and wishing and praying and pretending that it’s enough—no matter that his kiss tastes of nothing but salt.

* * *

In another world, Jon is banished to the Wall while Sansa rules the North as Queen.

Jon could go home, he knows. King Bran’s sentence aside, the Wall remains part of the North. A raven arrived with the Stark seal not even a moon after his return, penned in Sansa’s own hand of his pardon. She would welcome him with open arms—just like that day in this very castle, just like the day he returned to bring monsters into their home. Even now, he can picture it so clearly. How tightly she would hold him, the way she would fit herself perfectly to nuzzle into his shoulder, how warm and soft and _home_ she would feel in his arms. He would never leave again, if he returned to Sansa.

But she deserves more than a kinslayer, a better man who never posed threat after threat to her safety, a man who actually listened to her. She deserves someone who doesn’t hate themselves. Sansa would forgive him of all he’s done, and he can barely stomach the thought of it. He doesn’t deserve her forgiveness, her warmth, her love. If he returned, he could have all of that.

So he doesn’t.

Sansa could bring Jon home, she knows. It would be less than a weeks’ ride to Castle Black, and she could afford to wait for his return if he was beyond the Wall. No, she knows she would make the time. He writes back to her sparsely, always filled with reasons as to why he can’t return—his sentence, how soon it is, what needs to be done at the Wall and beyond, excuse after excuse after excuse—but she knows Jon better despite how carefully he tries to guard his heart. If she were to come to him in person and ask him home, he would not deny her. Whether from guilt or loneliness or love, he would come back with her, if only she asked.

But he could return at any time he wishes, and the fact that he won’t hurts more than she can admit. There’s no use for pride in winter, but what good would it do to force him home against his wishes? She refuses to watch him walk the halls of Winterfell like a ghost, haunted by mistakes and regrets he refuses to forgive himself for. All her life, she begged for love, and she refuses to reduce herself to that any longer.

So she doesn’t.

Nothing could stop them from being together should they choose so. Sansa is Queen in the North. Jon is Lord Commander of a Night’s Watch with nothing to watch. Blood, family, propriety—they all mean nothing in the face of what they feel, and they know it.

They love each other. Even so, it isn’t enough.

Love rarely is.

* * *

In another world, they’re almost together.

In another world, they’re almost happy.

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> \- did sansa meet brienne and pod before or after meeting ramsay? was euron there at the s7 reach attack?? BIG FUCKING SHRUG like i realize there are probably a lot of inconsistencies w/ events in canon and timelines, but i’ll be real: i could not ass myself to refresh myself on them, not even read episode summaries, ESPECIALLY for season 5  
\- i remember reading a long time ago someone’s theory that it’d be cool if jon’s “targaryen” name was aemon, like maester aemon at castle black and then aemon the dragonknight who he admired. given that it’s still FUCKING STUPID that the show called him aegon when rhaegar already had a son named aegon and that JAEHAERYS just sounds/looks.... ridiculous imo..... i went with aemon  
\- am i making a dig at the show and calling it a shitty au? yes, yes i am
> 
> and lastly i'd just like to say thank you to the jonsa ao3 fandom for keeping me SO WELL-FED, like i've never been so catered to for a ship in my LIFE. having a popular ship in an active fandom is just so wildly different from what i'm used to, and i love it. in that sense, writing for such an active ship was a little intimidating in a way, but i hope this small contribution is worth something in the sea of amazing fic out there for jonsa. CANON MIGHT SUCK BUT AT LEAST WE ALWAYS GOT AO3 AMIRITE!!


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